May 2011

May 31, 2011

If “Imagination is evidence of the Divine” then, as John Keats wrote in a letter, “What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.”

When something beautiful captured Eve’s imagination, she knew it was “truth.” This link between the imagination, beauty, and truth is surprising, even counterintuitive. We would normally expect an instinctual response to beauty to involve a sense of feeling good, satisfied, a sense of enjoyment in what is pleasing to us. We don’t think of beauty as “true.” Beauty is subjective, not objective. What was Keats suggesting by this link?

The Rambam (Maimonides, or Moshe Ben Maimon, the 12th -century Sephardic rabbi and doctor) explains that before Eve spoke to the snake, she understood the world in terms of truth and falsehood. Good and evil were values that did not occur to her. In Eve’s mind truth (the interconnectedness of the spiritual and physical worlds) was beautiful.

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’, — that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

(John Keats -- from “Ode on a Grecian Urn”)

Here Keats taps into what Eve knew in Eden: that beauty and truth are the same thing. The physical world is beautiful because it represents the spiritual world, and Eve could see “heaven in a wildflower.” Emily Dickinson wrote of beauty and truth “the two are one.”

The Rambam contends that when Eve’s imagination seized on beauty and saw truth there, she ignored judgments such as good and bad because the “I” did not dominate her inner life—when the “I” dominates, subjectivity takes over, and we see things as either good or bad. What would it be like to see everything as either true or false?

When something false presented itself to Eve, a voice could suggest: “you” might like this. But that “you” is relatively easy to ignore. It represents a theoretical desire. Eve might have a detached thought such as: “Something in me thinks I want this.” It was not difficult to dismiss such a thought. But once desire begins to speak in the first person, it’s a different situation. Then it’s unequivocally “me.”

The snake was able to draw Eve into a place where the “I” dominated. Where the “I” took control and steered her rather than her steering it. “To be in a passion you good may do” Blake wrote, “But no good if a passion is in you.” If passion is in you, then it controls you. If you are in a passion then you can steer it.

In my next post I will explore how the snake pulled Eve into the place of “I,” where desire began to guide her rather than the other way around.

But now I want to look at a poem by Robert Creeley which laments the dogged persistence of the dominating “I.” He suggests that the perseverance of the “I” traps one in anxiety. He writes: “What am I to myself / that must be remembered, / insisted upon / so often?” And he asks, “am I to be locked in this / final uneasiness”? Creeley feels that the insistent “I” leads to “tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi- / lust of intentional indifference.”

The snake led Eve out of the poet’s trance where her imagination seized on beauty as truth, and he brought her to a place where the “I” dominates existence. Creeley acknowledges this trap and then finds a way out:

The Rain by Robert Creeley

All night the sound had come back again,and again fallsthis quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myselftthat must be remembered, insisted upon so often? Is it

that never the ease, even the hardness, of rain fallingwill have for me

something other than this, something not so insistent—am I to be locked in thisfinal uneasiness.

Love, if you love me, lie next to me.Be for me, like rain, the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi- lust of intentional indifference.Be wet with a decent happiness.

Silence by Marianne Moore

My father used to say, “Superior people never make long visits, have to be shown Longfellow’s grave nor the glass flowers at Harvard. Self reliant like the cat – that takes its prey to privacy, the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth – they sometimes enjoy solitude, and can be robbed of speech by speech which has delighted them. The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.” Nor was he insincere in saying, “`Make my house your inn’.” Inns are not residences.

May 30, 2011

Yesterday I wrote that the biblical Eve lived in, as Goethe called it, “the poet’s trance.” But then the snake seduced her out of that place of passionate clarity.

Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman, otherwise known as the Ramban or Nachmanides, the leading Medieval Spanish scholar who later settled in Israel, commented on the following language from the text: “Let us make humans in Our image and in Our likeness” (1:26). He wrote that the word which means “Our likeness” in Hebrew, “kidmutanu,” finds its root in the word “dimyon.” This word means “imagination.” Human beings are defined by the power of broad imagination--God’s imagination was transferred to humanity, and Eve’s “poet’s trance” included what Keats called “the truth of the imagination.” Blake wrote that “the imagination is the body of God” and "Imagination is evidence of the Divine."

When Eve listened to the snake, she limited herself – she moved from continually experiencing the truth of the imagination to a restricted space where the connection between imagination and truth was obscured. Ironically, when she ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil she narrowed her knowledge. The Kabbalah calls the tree, "the Tree of Doubt" – her eating from it brought uncertainty, hesitation, and scepticism into the world. And ultimately, shame.

I have been asking myself the question: how did the snake seduce Eve into narrow doubt and bewilderment? If Eve was so lucid, how did the snake manage to confound her? If her sensitivity to truths reverberated through her, and she felt the web of creation shudder every time she touched it, how could he obfuscate her perspicacious vision? If she gazed through a transparent film and witnessed the connections between the divine and the material, couldn’t she see through the snake? Tomorrow, I will look at the text, some commentaries, and a Robert Creeley poem to better understand how this happened.

I'll end now with lines from Blake's "Auguries of Innocence," which embody the issues I will address in tomorrow's post:

If the sun and moon should doubt,They'd immediately go out.To be in a passion you good may do,But no good if a passion is in you.

May 29, 2011

This week we welcome Eve Grubin as our guest blogger. Eve’s book of poems, Morning Prayer, was published by the Sheep Meadow Press. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many literary journals and magazines, including The American Poetry Review,The Virginia Quarterly Review, The New Republic, Poetry Review, and Conjunctions, where her chapbook-size group of poems was featured and introduced by Fanny Howe. Her essays have appeared in various magazines and anthologies including, The Veil: Women Writers on Its History Lore and Politics (U of CA Press, 2009). Eve was the programs director at the Poetry Society of America for five years. She has taught poetry at The New School University and in the graduate creative writing program at the City College of New York. She writes a column, Letters from London, for Poetry International, and she is a tutor at the Poetry School. She lectures at New York University in London where she also runs the Poetry Club. She is the Poet in Residence at the London School of Jewish Studies.

Last week, C.K. Williams gave the annual Poetry Society lecture in London where he quoted Goethe who said (this is paraphrased – Williams said the words quickly, and I scribbled down what I could): “The poet’s requisite trance is the most fragile element in his armory."

I have been thinking about the poet’s trance—that room we enter (or room that enters us) in the middle of, or just before, writing a poem: a necessary space fusing silence and music, detachment and emotion, calm and energy. It’s a room of stirring clarity and peaceful vitality. The Goethe quote is not unlike Wordsworth’s “Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.”

It’s a state that poets wait for, long for. We fear it will not come.

I imagine that Keats wrote, “My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains...” and then he stepped into this eloquent armour.

The trance is not just for poets. It’s also useful for those who pray, play tennis, kiss, perform surgery, build a bookcase, and perform other activities that require creativity, focus, imagination, assimilated learning and knowledge, spontaneity, and an affectionate attachment to the subject of the endeavour.

I am preparing to teach a class at the London School of Jewish Studies on the biblical Eve. We will look at the text in the Hebrew and English translations, study classic commentaries, and then look at poems that explore Eve. I have been asking myself the question: did Eve go into a “poet’s trance” when the serpent spoke to her or was she in a trance up until the moment the serpent began to speak to her?

“And God said, Let’s make man in Our image. . . God created Man, in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1.26-27)

The text repeats the idea of creating the human being at least three times, and the idea of creating a person in “God’s image” is also repeated three times. The repetition of both emphasizes the significance of human life. Rashi, the medieval French commentator and grammarian, explains that the enigmatic phrase should be read “with God’s image,” emphasizing that God has no physicality. Rashi offers this metaphor: God used a kind of stamp reflecting the divine unphysical qualities and created the human form with that stamp. The bodies of humans correspond to a counterpart in the spiritual world. Because Eve was created with God’s image, she lived inside a kind of passionate clarity: she was aware of how the physical world paralleled the spiritual one. The following lines by Blake could describe Eve’s awareness of how hidden truths were buried in the veil of the natural world:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour. (“Auguries of Innocence”: 1-4)

She lived in the mode of the poet’s trance – vivid clarity, focused creativity, and a spontaneous sanity saturated existence. The snake led her out of the trance room and into the room of rationalization and bewilderment. The connections between the divine and the physical world became less apparent. Harmony was no longer the default; everything suddenly seemed out of sync.

I will end this post with Marie Howe’s poem “Part of Eve’s Discussion,” a prose poem, which captures Eve’s disorientation, a sense of having stepped out of the trance and into a world of confusion, much like the world we live in today (unless we are lucky enough to find ourselves in moments where we can put on Goethe’s eloquent armour):

"It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, and flies, just before it flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop, very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say, it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time."

Do you consider yourself 'poets'? If so, how do you negotiate around the traffic of social conversations that would require you to admit such a label, or is it as my friend Lauren Hunter says, "your dirty little secret"?

CK: It helps that 90% of my friends are also poets or something equally silly, but, yes, it is hard to say it with a straight face sometimes, especially among respectable members of the community.

JJ: I admit to writing poetry, but don’t usually call myself a poet. If someone else does, fine. But what do we even mean by poet, or by poetry? Even in a poetry workshop, we all have different ideas of what poetry is, or what effective or worthwhile poetry is. Anyway, I’d rather describe myself as a writer, just as I prefer to think about writing as writing, rather than a particular form or genre. I do think what is it is an ok question, but just like I prefer what does it do to what does it mean, I prefer what does it do to what is it. And maybe what does it do and who or what does it do it to, and when, etc, is a more productive series of questions. So when people ask me what I do, I might say I write, or that I write poetry, if it makes sense in context, but I am a poet sounds to me like I’m different from you, or I have a different/superior grasp of language than you do. If we feel self-conscious as writers of poetry, or as self-proclaimed writers of poetry, is it because we perceive poetry to be ridiculous or unnecessary? Or are we giving ourselves a backhanded compliment, bemoaning the myth that poetry is not valued in society, or that poetry is an occupation that doesn’t pay, but we do it anyway, or that we are misunderstood? Poems are more interesting than poets, and poetry is more interesting than poems. I make poems, sometimes with words; call me what you want to. Call me Jeff or hey you.

MG: Well yeah, so I just tell them that I write stuff and it’s mostly poetry. I don’t often use that label (‘poet’) in describing myself, but I certainly won’t correct anyone if that’s what they chose to use to describe me.

CD: In response to the first question, a quote from my friend and teacher Ross Gay comes to mind: ‘We are not our poems.’

In response to the second question: When I find myself in a social situation that requires me to talk about poetry, I usually say, ‘I studied poetry in graduate school’ or ‘My formal training was in poetry writing.’ And then I qualify the statement by stating that I’ve also studied and written and done a lot of things, all of which feel like poetry to me.

AS: I don’t know that I’d call myself a Poet. I’ll wait for other people to do that.

When it comes up in conversation, I often dodge - talk about writing first, and then if people press, I mention poetry. I’m reluctant to have to explain myself too much.

DB: In my experience, the conversation rarely makes it much further. If you say you're a poet, people take your word for it; whether it's from manners or indifference or both, most people leave it at that (& I don't feel obligated to explain anything).

AP: I smile and change the subject.

Why? Why poetry?

CK: No one has good reason to do anything. I was good at writing and people complimented me on my writing and I kept on writing and then I went to study poetry at various accredited universities and now it is what I am always doing and thinking about. That’s not a very romantic answer. I think it suits me and the way my brain processes things, but if things had gone a little differently I could imagine myself pursuing any number of ridiculous artist endeavors.

JJ: Because it is.

MG: For the money and the fame.

CD: Right now, my mind goes here: Because everything has a poetics, and because language lets me check in with my ears.

AS: Because I came out of the womb rhyming. Because elliptical and inverted expression. Because over-explanation bores. Because the mystery of shared language is one I serve. Because singing.

AP: Because I'm not a painter. (Too obvious? Sorry, but I hate this question.)

DB: Could you repeat the question?

But isn't poetry a dead art form?

CK: If an art critic for the New York Times hasn’t declared your art form dead, then it isn’t worth doing.

JJ: What is poetry’s form? What’s it made of? If language, what is that? Isn’t language always dying in the form of utterance? How long do poems stay fresh? Why do we keep making them? Are we just trying to make a really good one so we can stop making them? Poetry is a form of death. Art is what you make it.

MG: Most things taste better when they are dead.

CD: If every word invokes a little death, I die – ‘I’ become(s) dead – as I write. I aspire toward the deadest death, and I call for you, the reader, to press your mind against the surface of this text. It will come alive.

AS: As long as humans speak to one another and babies babble after birth, poetry is inherent in existence.

DB: Undead.

AP: Nope.

One of our panelists, Jeff T. Johnson has said that, and correct me if I'm wrong, JJ, that poetry is as much an art form as the visual arts (e.g., painting, photography, video, et al). Jeff, can you can you exlplain this theory a bit more? How do the you others feel about this theory?

CK: I’m not sure I get this one and would hate to get egg on my face in front of the whole BAP readership. Poetry is art, the same way a painting is art and dance and basket weaving and songwriting are art. Is poetry a visual art? Depends on the poet/poem. Poetry does exist visually since most people experience it on the page in its visual form; however very few poems would do well framed and hanged in a gallery. Saroyan and Appolinaire would, though.

JJ: Claire Donato and I have an ongoing conversation about this. I probably got the notion from her, and she probably discovered it elsewhere. We (the larger, more nebulous we) are comfortable describing painting as art (though art, or the art world, whatever that is, is currently over painting, maybe), but we don’t necessarily think of poetry as art. Or, better said, when we say art we might think of painting or sculpture or drawing or video installation, etc., but we probably don’t think of poetry. Why is that? Visual art sounds familiar to us, but we don’t think of poetry as visual art, even though we like to recognize poetry as text with line breaks. (Who is we?) But poetry is visual art. Poetry is language art. Sound and meaning are important in poetry, but so is shape. And, to be sure, poetry (and language) is not just words. If one of poetry’s best strategies is juxtaposition, can we do the work of poetry using only images? Of course we can. And words can also act as visual objects to be looked at. We can read images, we can look at text. And we do. Why shouldn’t we create multimedia poetry?

MG: I’d argue that poetry can work like the visual arts, and yet, on a couple levels it is a completely different animal. For one thing, the aural quality of poetry predates its written presentation: long before languages were codified, long before print, there were story-tellers, Greek theatrical epics, bards, etc. Here’s the big, bold and probably refutable statement: No matter what their aesthetic is, all poets working today are still reckoning with the pre-codified, aural ancestry of the art form. I’d even argue that “visual approaches” to poetics, still imply some sort of sense of real-time, of being inside time with the spaces between stanzas enacting pauses of sorts. That being said, I think visual arts approaches to poetry most assuredly do inform the way a poem is read. Many decisions that poets make are ‘visual’ or ‘graphic’ in nature. I don’t even know if I answered the question.

CD: I’m interested in what Jennifer DeVere Brody calls “an expanded field of writing” where language is embodied material that takes shape both on- and off- of the physical page. With regard to embodied writing practices, it seems many visual artists are writers and vice-versa and versa-vice until the boundaries are broken down and blurry. I think of Jenny Holzer’s nighttime projections, Tom Phillips’s treated Victorian novel A Humument, Caroline Bergvall’s language-driven installations, Aram Saroyan’s lighght verse, Kenneth Goldsmith’s book-objects, C.D. Wright’s carefully sculpted texts. The list goes on.

AS: Of course it’s an equal art form. Poetry does things these other arts can’t, which is not to their detriment, but is worth noting: verse can be memorized and carried in the brain whole. You can only have a memory of your experience of those other art forms, but the moment you recite a poem from inside your self you experience it again, in total. It’s awe-inspiring.

DB: There's less money in it.

AP: Agree.

Okay, time for some irreverence. Are smoking and drinking prerequisites to becoming a 'poet'?

May 27, 2011

Take heed of the silence of mind in sound.; the serenity of frenzy. Those records that have moved you, shook you, crushed you, those records that you have risen to, hold on to them, use them wisely. Hold on to the music, it's as necessary as oxygen, sleep, bathroom visits, I'm sure of it. Here is a list of bands, records, albums that have, and continue to be, my salve.

Breaking news: Just received, via postal service, the galley of Paul Legault's The Other Poems, and when I say you should be excited about this new volume of poems, I mean you need to be excited, Sally. Please, reserve your copy today, you will not be disappointed. The poems in this volume, if you're not familiar with Mr. Legault's work are humorous, erudite, and austere. The poems come pregnant with wit, and unmitigated deftness. Thank you, Paul Legault.

May 26, 2011

After much discussion with friend, Jeff T. Johnson, I decided on his advice: I went for a drive to figure, to compose, ponder, to breathe. Here are the ramblings of a mad man gone mad.

1. So much for a visit to the psychiatrist's office: 10 minutes, 1 script, twenty dollar co-payment.

2. I tend to do my finest thinking in the shower, and by finest thinking, I don't mean, in any way, that it is lucid, complex thought, but it's fine enough for me. Warm water: focus. Warm water for twenty minutes: discipline. Warm water for twenty minutes, at least three times a day: productivity. What's better, a drive or a shower?

3. Last night, a former student penned me a note asking me what would the best way to go about getting published. My advice: Don't worry about that, just write. He thanked me.

4. I tend to go for long drives at night. Being nocturnal since birth, it all makes sense. Much like a shower, it forces me to focus, produce. Driving, in my humble opinion, is divinity coupled with grace. Thurston might say, a benediction.

5. I once asked a girl out and she said, no. I once asked a girl out and she said, yes.

6. Today, I took a walk to Unnameable Books and purchased 16 Short Plays by Israel Horovitz, The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich (suggested to me by JTJ), Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas. I was going to purchase After Spicer: Critcal Essays edited by John Emil Vincent, but decided, next time.

7. Read four beautiful poems by Jake Kennedy featured in The Awl (Mark Bibbins, Editor): http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/four-poems-by-jake-kennedy

8. Is there anymore use for the love poem? Obsolete?Dead? What purpose does it serve? Is it coded? Bring it back.

9. Faith in love? Love in faith? Love in?

10. Read a wonderful article on Cummings and Thayer in The Awl this afternoon: http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/a-lost-e-e-cummings-poem-discovered

11: Heard Howard Stern talking about masturbation. He said something to the effect of 3 times a day. I say, on a good day, once, and that usually takes an hour.

12. Today marks the first barbecue of the year at the DeJesús homestead.

13. I love Larry Fisher of Vortex fame. He was my boss for three years at Space Age Bachelor Pad Junk Shop located on E. 11th between 3rd and 4th across from what used to be 99 X. You can find him here and there. Check his site out: http://garbology.wordpress.com/

May 25, 2011

During a conversation with Samantha the other day, it was suggested that my next post simply be about things that make me happy. Below, you will a find a harum-scarum list of some of the things that happen to make this crazy cat smile. This one is for you, Sam.

The work of Paul Legault: The Madeline Poems, The Other Poems (got a sneek peek)

Ted Berrigan

Buster Keaton

Laurel and Hardy

Al Pacino

Jeff Bridges

Chocolate egg creams

The Queers

The Krays

Packages

Marianna's laugh

Panick Attack!: Art in the Punk Years (Merrell Publishers, 2007)

Howie Pyro's Intoxica Radio

Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punk on Film (Fantagraphics Books, 2010)

Jeff Johnson's manuscript: Filmography

Pornography (Video tape, dvd, internet, any will do)

K. Silem Mohammad's Sonnagrams

Airplanes

Notebooks

Martin Beeler's poetry

Michel Gizzi (RIP)

Peter Gizzi

Semi-colons

Klonopin

Ampersands

The Verrazano Bridge

Tony Manero's hair

Any mention of the television show Small Wonder

Winnie Cooper

My mother's latina/Brooklyn accent

Georgina's whispers

Long autumn rides with Karen Cervasio Kolyer

Hüsker Dü

The photos of Dash Snow

Hans Peter-Feldman

The idea of Los Angeles

Jessica Madison's smile

Ariel Kates-Harris' "Rad!"

Ashleigh Allen's booming laugh

Dean, of Cafe Loup fame

Natalie Portman

Maggie Q

Disliking Madonna

My suspicion of folks who hate television, but watch Hulu all day (Thanks, Christine)

Dad

Bensonhurst, circa 1990 and earlier

Coney Island High (No longer)

CBGB's (No longer)

The Truents (NYC punk)

Popcorn

My adopted niece, Elizabeth Collins

Cursing in English

Cursing in Spanish

Meliza's "Cawfee"

Rachel's Penelope Cruz and Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Allison Power's hair

Allison Tray and Maria

Little House on the Prairie (TV show)

Root beer

Poems

Ernest Borgnine

Popeye

Illiana and Amanda

Smeltz

Joe Weil's mind

Ron Silliman

Charles Bernstein

PennSound

EPC (Electronic Poetry Center)

Modigliani

Susan Bee

Grollier Poetry Book Shop

The old Bowery

Bernadate Mayer

Aram Sarayon's Minimal Poems (Ugly Duckling Presse)

Samantha Zighelboim holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her poems, translations, and book reviews have appeared in Maggy, Thumbnail, TheThe Poetry Blog BOMB, Rattapallax, and The People’s Poetry Project. Recently, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize on behalf of Thumbnail. She received an honorable mention for the 2010 Bennett Poetry Prize at Columbia University, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Currently she’s working on her first collection of poems, and lives in New York City with her cat, Buddha.

May 24, 2011

i) For the past several weeks I have given much thought to the idea of identity crisis in poetics. I've been much beleaguered with conflict: Do I keep my mouth shut? Don't agitate, to I need this discussion in order to sleep soundly, even if this discussion is whispered, a monologue.

1) There is a silence to my last name, a quietude I've never been able to completely discern. What does it mean? Do I change it? You know, cute high school kids can be quite cruel. Like so many other high school students,I heard the jokes, and I took them, stored them away, festered they did, I'd let them go, eventually. The power of affirmation, reaffirmation, embrace, detachment.

2) What in the hell is poetry? I'm fifteen-years-old, and I'm looking at trochees, stanzas, enjambments, and what I once completely disregarded, dismissed, I decide to touch, devour. In a previous post, I mentioned that cummings' 100 poems was the first volume of poetry I truly read, parsed. I carried it with me at all times: On my way to a friend's, on the N train headed towards Brighton. Why was this text becoming inextricable from my person? A limb. Forgive the mawkishness, it's nostalgia.

3) I remember handing George (Mr. MacLarty at the time) my first attempt. He was so very kind; he was diplomatic, generous. A little too lyrical, but keep trying he said. I was easily discouraged. I decided to sleep for the next two years, but I kept on reading during those moments of wakefulness. I'd scribble something for my la-dy friend, proudly signing it before handing it to her. Silly. Too lyrical, but maybe I'd get it straight. I never did get it straight, and don't plan on getting it straight, but I stay its path. I'm still sleeping, but college in September, time to wake up, just a little.

4) First semester concludes, I decide on my major: Comparative Literature. Fancy, no? Dad: "What the hell are you going to do with that? Maybe advertising." At the time, I wasn't sure, and I'm still not sure, but I was certain that I loved books, text; I liked slamming my body against the shelves of the college library (true story). Chuito Sin Coquis: My first college attempt at writing a one-act play. Good? No. Necessary? Yes. Poorly acted by yours truly on a stage in St. John's University? Of course. Necessary? Yes. Born: 1993. From: Disparaging remarks made by some latina friends at the time. Some of those gems: "Why you dress like that?"; "You smoke Chesterfields?"; "You're like a blancito." Now, mind you, I love, and still love, these friends, but make no mistake, a challenge had been declared by said friends. Why should I write this one-act-er that was best suited for the litter box. Necessary? Yes. Why should I keep writing? Should I? what are 'mi gente' going to think of me. Should I write about the cultura, la famalia? Could I write about other things? Maybe. Not sure. Hand me that riddle.

5) Fast forward: Years later, I continue writing that thing called poetry or poesia; I'm stubborn. Problem: That damn last name. If I only I could change it. No, I'll keep it. Mami would slapped me in the head for even thinking such a thing. I keep it. Now what? What? Yes, Victor Hernández Cruz, William Carlos Williams, Piri Thomas, Miguel Piñero, Julia de Burgos, they'd all been there, done it. Caveat: Not in anyway am I putting my name in that list, just imparting examples.

6) La familia: DeJesús, Rodriguez. Locations: Caguas, Ponce, Brooklyn. Scattered about cool cats. Diaspora with a smile. Grandma (Mami) took care of me, taught me la lengua, made me eat the food, waved the flag, proud to be boricua. Me, proud? Not so much. It took years of thought and therapy before I'd embrace that last name. I suppose my problem with the last name is that it seemed to obstruct, impede my plans. What plans? How? Don't have an answer. Lucky to be bilingual, right Mami, Mom, Dad, Papi? You see, I'm not pontificating, but paying homage to my roots, my foundation, my cement. This for Pepe, John (mi primo, dead at 37 due to alcoholism), Ismael, Abuelo Fingue, Abuelo Luis, Titi Lola, Titi Carmen, Tio Paco ( the gang stories of Red Hook, priceless. Names: The Chaplin Mau-Maus, The Apaches, et al). All them cowboy and indians, my family. Wild cats, Fragmented, but united under one organic, poetic smile. Prosody, unbeknownst to them, was and is in their blood. Whether it manifests itself in form of "Coño" (fuck in our dialect), merengue, salsa, Hector Lavove, Tito, the music, the perpetual dance, tounge and foot. Ray, write about anything you want, it's all there for you to cradle. Use it all. Combine it all. Make it one. Sonrisa. Oh, the physiognomy of it all. The physiology. Orgullo.

May 23, 2011

Book sales were brisk at the Hanging Loose spring book launch party last week. No surprise if you consider that the press was celebrating the release of new volumes by Jen Benka, Gerald Fleming, Pablo Medina, Elizabeth Swados, and Terence Winch, who we're lucky to have as a regular contributor to this blog. I love Winch's book Falling Out of Bed in a Room with no Floor and each time I open it, which is often, I marvel at his mastery of forms, his range of subjects, and his wit and wordplay. (Check out this alliteration, from "Snow Days": I'll envision / snoring steamboat captains sailing in celestial / circles round the rings of the tree of life, / cheerily chiding: "Regardez la neige!" / while begging for English and breakfast in bed.") Read David Lehman's brief review here and Winch's Sic Transit Gloria here. And buy the book here.

Guy asks me for $1.80 on the subway.White guy, bald, shirt and tie.Says they towed his car with his wallet in it.He is sitting in front of me. All the menin the car have been stealthily eyeingan astonishingly beautiful young womanin a very short skirt, who has beendrawing in a big sketchbook. She is luminous.Summer is almost over. I can't concentrateon reading because I have to sneak looksat the gorgeous artist. The day is flyingpast in the fading sunlight.

Big bald oval head right in my face.I'll pay you back, he says. That's okay,I say. I give him two dollars. He says thanksand turns around. We all resume studyingthe woman. Two young black guys sitacross from me. One of them keeps snapping his gum so loud it's like a cap gun going off.

An enormous fat guy says to the beauty as he headsfor the door: I don't know how you can drawwith the train bumping around. She smilesat him. We are all overcome with the radiantbrilliance of her smile. I think about music,I think about my godson smashing nine windowsin New Jersey yesterday. We are always tryingto break out. Sex is better than religion.

She gets up at Metro Center. The doors slide openfor her and she's gone. It's back to real time. The Yankees are one and a half games out of first. Someone's cell phone rings and he squawks: Can't hear you. I'm on the subway. What? The bald guy rises up. I know he will turn around before exiting and thank me again, give a further gesture of appreciation.It's the right thing to do. Two bucks is not nothing between strangers.I'm sure he'll give me that bonus nod.

In youth you tend to look rather frequently into a mirror, not at all necessarily from vanity. You say to yourself, “What an interesting face; I wonder what he’ll be up to?” —J. M. Barrie, “Courage”

Here is how pussycat / I will show you to carry / your unframed Cortez / the conqueror portrait / out of your nursery and into the forest you’ll kneel in to sleep the cock of the walk through falling of dead unalterable leaves you cannot yearn to ally your friends with influence of law Learn your Greek You’re a hero to open your book to learn Jupiter failed as a nation Though made by the giants

Australian is English! I’d fold the universe shut with tears choking my prize four crosses of shirts and trousers in my fist and a poor fellow’s sword on my floor Come from somewhere for a purpose Go to somewhere for none The angry burst into the room The mad burst into the wall as a victory poem let it not be said in the song that is so true no ship moves up the one star night without a plan to execute in perpetuity, no no no no no no no No, my boy, no no no no no no no no no no no No no no, my boy, no no no no no no no no no no no The ship is a natural ship as the wand is a natural wand as the Englishman is hearing the frogs uplifted as the queerest antique stag

Don’t play with banker’s straw, my boy but talk the penny down from its smoldering cloud into your cup you are that human shape of public statuary not to be that town crier in a meat locker (armies travel on their stomachs) Everyone’s beloved is a finite distance from your bed

Carry your portrait close to the vest leave your liqueur set down by the fire pick up the receiver remember your Greek and strum your important guitar.

You are doing what I tell you to do. What more do you want us to do. We will eat and then we will guard. I want you to obey me willfully. I do this to make us work. The giants made me for this purpose. We will guard and then we will sleep. That is the action. There’ll be enough trouble. I’m a hero to open your book. We will work on the same shift.

Jeff Bridges

i. I'm on a train headed towards New England with Jeff in my hands. Jeff is on the cover of Esquire in Elvis pose with mic. He's staring at me with those, those tough yet warm eyes. I'm thinking Robert Mitchum with a warm smile. Whenever I start to shake, lose it, I go back to Jeff.

II. Jeff knows how to laugh, smirk. I don't know Jeff, but I'd like to think, at the very least, that Jeff is my safe place. Watching his interviews one immediately becomes cognizant of the fact that he's a thoughtful man, a surgeon with a tough facade, a soft interior. Do I know Jeff? No, I don't know Jeff, but I'm pretty sure he's confident with his masculinity. Jeff's maculinity ain't about machismo, no. Rather, his masculinity is all about assuredness and subtlety coupled with some frenetic energy. Jeff is a curious man: Actor, painter, sculptor, musician, photographer, zen master, et al. Jeff is sure; his laugh says it all, man.

III. I remember Jeff in Against All Odds. Remember Jeff in Against All Odds? Rachel Ward, James Woods? That bastard grabbed hold of me back in 1984. Jeff knew how to love, how to make love. Yeah, he wasn't fucking Rachel Ward, he was loving her Take heed, boys.Jeff transcends sex. Do I know Jeff? No, but his laugh keeps me afloat.

iv. Remember Jeff in Tron (1982) and Starman (1984)? Yeah, he is good. A few weeks ago, I was watching a short documentary on Jeff on American Masters (Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides, PBS) in which Karen Allen says the following in regards to Jeff's preparation for his role in Starman: "He actually watched birds and babies, he told me." He probably did, and that's why we believe him. Tron? I remember thinking, I'm Kevin Flynn, I am Clu, I am the user. Yes, I was Jeff for a few hours of the day, everyday. Imagine that, an 11-year-old Jeff.

v. I could mention "The Dude," but I won't. Everything that needs to be said about The Big Lebowski has been said by better men than I, so we'll leave that one alone. Remember Jeff in Crazy Heart? I do, but what I really remember about that role is the speech it inspired him to make on that dais upon receiving his Oscar for Best Actor. He didn't start by kowtowing to the agents, the press, no. Instead, he held that statue up to the sky and thanked mom and dad. He thanked them for the ride, the experience, and isn't that what it's all about? Whether you're an actor, painter, poet, novelist, accountant, farmer, it's about family. I think so, and apparently so does Jeff.

vi. Does this small case study smell of stalker? Idolatry? Most likely, but I'm just going to continue to embrace Jeff until the day I stop shaking, and who knows when that will be.

Macregor Card is the author of Duties of an English Foreign Secretary published by Fence Books, 2009. Mr. Card is a wonderful man and brilliant poet/translator/editor who happens to know his Chaka Khan. Many thanks to Macgregor for allowing me to use "That Old Woolly Bloodletting".

May 22, 2011

Didi Menendez's portrait project is designed for poets as well as visual artists. She has selected and posted photogaphic portraits to serve as models Here are some of the particlars centerting on a Star Black photograph from February 2011. There are five other photographs at the moment and Didi may add to that number. For full details, click here.

<<< Deadline: August 15, 2011

Visual Artists:

Render a portrait using this image and send a jpg of your portrait to didimenendez at hotmail.com. Place on subject line PORTRAIT STUDY #2. You may render the portrait in your preferred medium. Specify with your submission the size and medium of your entry along with your name and web site/online portfolio address. Everyone is welcomed to submit a portrait. All entries following the guidelines will be placed on this blog post. Once all entries have been submitted by the deadline, the best will be featured in PoetsArtists (www.poetsandartists.com) web site.

Poets:

Submit a poem inspired from this image to didimenendez at hotmail.com. Place on subject line Portrait Study #2. Send poem attached to a word document along with your web site address and short bio. If the poem is well received by our editor (me), it will be published on this post. The best poem will be published in the PoetsArtists web site along with the best portrait submitted by a visual artist.>>>

i. Is it Barcelona? Is it Brooklyn? Paris? No, Brooklyn, I'm sure of it. After all,for 37 years it's the city that's taken so much from me, but, simultaneously, givenme its heart and marrow. I owe this cement and tar; this cement and tar knows of my debt. Whether we’re talking Dyker, Carroll Gardens, Bushwick, Canarsie, Windsor, Kensington, Manhattan Beach, Brighton, and ah, Sunset Park (Gunset to its natives, me included), et al, home.

ii. Sunset for 28 years. My first kiss; first love, Kim Toler; loves come and gone; first making whoopee; mortality here and there; loves gone and come; books stacked, books tossed; sheets of scribbling thrown to the wolves and the dumpster (true story); cheese sandwiches in the church vestibule; catholic schoolboy/school girl uniforms; stolen bikes; eight hour wiffle ball marathons(“Scuff that ball good,kid”); slap; spud; manhunt; manic late night drives (2AM to be exact) from Sunset to Gravesend and back.

iii. I may have had the honor, the privilege to travel here and there, but these is some special, gritty streets. Mind you, I'm not the only one born out of Brooklyn's womb: The Millers, Selby Jr., Mailer, Woody, Basquiat, Streissand, Louie the Lizard, Frankie from Smith, Angela (those eyes), Illiana (damn fabulous smile), The Savasta sisters (Marianna, Giulieta, Vincenza; Marianna, them poutty lips) Colleen, Mr.Mouse and his brother Red, and yes, Violi, Sir Paul Violi.

iv. Doesn't Brooklyn know its language, its prosody? Of course it does, Brooklyn comes equipped. Whether you hear the syllables, the cadences, the beat, in the trees, on the train platform, your local deli, in traffic, in line for your lotto ticket (the beautiful and talented poet, Ashleigh Allen, would be proud of my preposition selection there), the language is there, always there. It refuses to move. It's in constant flux, morphing. Beautiful lines, crass and uncomfortable lines. Some favorites of mine, and it’s all about delivery: "Do me favor? Go fuck yourself!" Or, the ubiquitous, "Go fuck your mother’!" When you hear these gems, accept them, embrace them, you know your home. Let me not forget that it was here that I found and read my first collections of poetry thanks to Mr. Ed Breslin and Mr. George MacLarty (poet, best friend and high school English teacher): cummings, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, yes. I was 15, and stuffed in my back pocket, true story, Ferlinghetti's Coney Island of the Mind and cummings' 100 poems. Yes, methinks I'm home.

This week we welcome Ray DeJesús as our guest blogger. Ray was born, raised, and still resides in Brooklyn, NY. A first generation Nuyorican, Ray is a graduate of The New School (MFA, Poetry, May 2010), and he currently teaches writing at St. Francis College. His poetry has twice been published in The Best American Poetry's Blog, Maggy Poetry Magazine (Issue 2), and Literary Chaos and is forthcoming in G(o)BBet Magazine out of the UK. He can also be found shielding his ears from the awful, shrill sound of church bells on a daily basis in his Bay Ridge neighborhood. Ray is working on two collaborations: A chapbook long project with poet Christine Kanownik, and a pseudo/quasi-epic poem with singer/songwriter/poet Laura Minor. His mantra: Sometimes things is just things.

May 21, 2011

If only I could find workas free from uncertaintyas the task on Brueghel's folksI would gladly sweat for my boss, hay.I would laze upon my bed of hay.Take a scythe to the ankles of my enemy, hay.Share a pear over hay.Find a wife and roll in the hay.March like an unworried ant in a map of haywith a colleague giving the report:

there is more hay, overthere, past all the hayyou see, and whenit's gone, waitand there will come more.Yea, only when weare gone will hay notbe, and even thenit will still bedead grass.